


The Woman with Three Faces

by wordsmithraven



Series: Samwena Week April 2020 [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternative Universe - Kingdom, Arthurian, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Gen, Harm to Animals, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, Politics, Romance, Spells & Enchantments, Witch Sam Winchester, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23613835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsmithraven/pseuds/wordsmithraven
Summary: Huntsman Sam is on a quest through an enchanted forest to kill a wicked witch but stumbles upon a painful truth, instead. Neither Sam nor Rowena are prepared for what happens next.Samwena Fan Week 2020 - Day 5: AU
Relationships: Rowena MacLeod & Oskar, Rowena MacLeod/Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester & Oskar
Series: Samwena Week April 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1693411
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23
Collections: Samwena Week





	The Woman with Three Faces

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a completely different story, didn't like it, scrapped it, and then wrote this in like three days.
> 
> Forgive me for the lateness. Here it is in all its un-beta'd glory.

It was said that the Red Witch of Mount Bheur had three faces: one to save, one to kill, and one to bind. Sam had not understood what that meant until it was too late. 

***

_One to save..._

Dencarrie Valley was a land under siege. Over the last two years the fertile valleys had turned barren, the rivers had dried up, and the amber mines had stopped producing yield. The people believed it was the work of the wicked witch of a nearby forest. This witch was said to have cursed their land in envy of Lady Olivette’s beauty.

The crisis had started slow, then rapidly escalated. It had culminated six months ago when Lord Cenric had been struck blind. On the same day, his sixteen year old son had disappeared. Lady Olivette had set a hefty reward for the rescue of Osgar and the death of the witch. A sum total of twelve hunters and knights-errant had attempted and failed. It was then that the lady of the castle had reached out to the capital city for aid.

Sam had arrived within a fortnight, at the beginning of winter. It took him no time at all to see that the castellany really had been cursed by a witch. He’d found hexed sachets and cursed talismans hidden throughout the castle, causing a variety of different ailments ranging from minor pranks to serious injury. Food curdled on the tongue, Lady Olivette’s hair was falling out, a knight took a bad turn on the stairs and broke both legs...and so forth. 

Destroying the hexed bags had ensured most of the curses stopped, including Lord Cenric’s lost eyesight. However, none of the items he found had any effect on the castellany’s economic disasters and persistent drought. Nor did the castellan heir appear out of a thicket. Those misfortunes were being caused by a far stronger and more virulent malediction. When Sam looked at Lord Cenric and Lady Olivette with his Sight, he could see a dark pall hanging over their heads, following them like a malevolent guardian. 

That kind of curse only lifted when either the caster removed it or died. And because witches could live for millennia, that meant the curse could last through _generations_ until the family line died out. With winter already arrived, that time might’ve been sooner rather than later for Dencarrie Valley. The castellany was on its last legs. Lord Cenric had admitted to Sam that they would only survive one more winter before the entire castellany starved to death.

Interestingly, Sam had confirmed that the major curse happened first then the lesser hexes had started in recent months. Before finding the hexed bags, Sam had wondered if the malediction had opened the house to a poltergeist, given the mischievous curses.

Satisfied with his investigation and confirming that real magic was at play, Sam decided on his next steps. He wove a charm of nettle and holly to ward off dark magic, sharpened his sword, and prepared a batch of witch-killing potion. Then he readied his horse and headed for the Spiral Wood, the most enchanted place in all of the Triple Kingdoms of Albion, Gehenna, and the Emry Isles.

The Spiral Wood was so called because the thick, deciduous forest ran up Mount Bheur in rings. In the Kingdom of Albion’s ancient myths, the mountain was thought of as the goddess Bheara who had stopped to rest on her journey striding across the world and had fallen into an eternal sleep. The Spiral Wood was meant to be her magic cloak that had spread out over her resting form. The cloak, being a source of divine magic, had brought forth fearsome creatures who protected their sleeping mistress to this day.

Sam had been interested in fables and myths ever since he was a boy. He was well familiar with the legends of the Spiral Wood, both ancient and folkloric. It was home to the most magical of creatures: fae, kelpies, imps, goblins, ghouls, and more. Trolls were especially reported to be prone to raids on the neighboring villages and farms. The most wicked of the inhabitants, however, was supposed to be the Red Witch of Mount Bheur. The stories said she sequestered high in her mountain keep and cursed any who dared to enter the forest below. 

Most of the tales seemed more cautionary than not and Sam had a feeling that a lot of things about the enchanted wood had been embellished over time and turned into lessons to scare children. Sam had heard, of course, of the witch bathing in lamb’s blood and eating the fingers of children who stole berries from the bushes. And at night, but _only_ when the moon was full, sometimes she wandered the woods naked in search of someone to both entice and devour.

Sam knew better, having traveled to all manner of mystical forests. Reality was rarely as tall as the tales made it seem. Most enchanted forests were only overtly dangerous to people who meant it and the inhabitants undue or unreasonable harm, if they blundered about without knowing what they were doing, or if they kept disrespecting the customs upheld by the fae. There were ways to get through enchanted forests even for people on a hunt such as Sam. 

Osgar’s last sighting had put him along the Kheir River so that's where Sam decided to start. Riot resisted Sam’s prodding to enter the boundary of the enchanted forest. The horse’s ears were pricked to attention and he snorted hard through his wide nostrils in protest. 

Sam leaned forward over the pommel of his sword and rubbed at the liver chestnut’s dark neck to sooth him. “It’s alright, buddy,” he said. “I’ll take care of you. We’ve done this a hundred times.”

After a moment, the horse’s stiff ears relaxed and he reluctantly trotted forward.

They ventured for hours, Sam searching the trees and underbrush for signs of possible attack. Enchanted forests were tricky things even without taking into account any sorcerers or monsters who dwelled within. They liked to confuse unwary travelers, changing paths to lead them in circles until they were so utterly lost that they would never find their way out. Other times, the forests would lead a person directly into trouble ranging from inconvenience to deadly danger. There were two major ways to keep from getting lost in an enchanted forest: be a denizen of it or have magic that could counteract any befuddling or labyrinthine spells--a sword, an amulet, personal power, and the like.

Fortunately, Sam’s ability to use the Sight gave him just the right edge to make most enchanted forest traps useless against him. If he kept his Eye open, he could see magically veiled enemies, differentiate cursed berries from safe ones, or notice when a pathway twisted into nothingness for eternity.

The Sight did not help to hasten his task, however. Night approached with still no luck in finding either Osgar’s or the witch’s trails. He was already a good way into the Spiral Wood and partially up the mountain. Sam sighed resignedly and doubled back a little ways until he found a safe area to set up camp. 

Sam opened one of the side pouches on Riot’s saddle pulling out a fist sized leather bag. Inside were four medium sized stones of blue amber. Runes of protection were etched into each in white and gold. Sam placed the stones at each of the cardinal directions. He stood at the northern stone and concentrated his power into it. They were a quartet cut and polished from the same piece and thus were intrinsically connected. Once his power touched one, it automatically connected to the others.

“ _Praesidium_ ,” Sam intoned and the protection ward came alive around him and Riot.

It would take a good amount of power to break through the circle he set and if something tried without his permission, the noise of the task would be so loud it would wake him. At that point, Sam would be in a better place to physically fend off an attacker.

Sam unsaddled Riot and swapped the bridle for a halter which he secured to a tree loosely enough that Riot could get free if he really wanted. There was enough grass that Sam didn’t feel the need to set out a feed bag. He built up a fire, removed the metal pieces of his light armor then laid out his bed roll. He ate jerky and hardtack, and used the fire to make tea. It wasn’t overly filling but he’d been unable to find a suitable animal to hunt all day. 

Filled as much as he could be on his meager dinner, he smothered the fire down to just the coals, laid down on the opposite side of the pit from where Riot had curled up, and then he fell asleep. His dreams were filled with memories of his youth, his mother, his academy...the village where he met his first love. A night at the wishing well during the Winter Solstice Festival. 

Sam’s nostalgic dreams were interrupted when he awoke with a jerk. He had no idea what woke him up. Riot was awake as well though he was not standing. The horse’s belly rose up and down with the animal’s rapid breathing. His flaxen mane and white blaze shined in the moonlight, and his eyes were almost luminescent. Sam looked outside of his protection circle for danger but found nothing except a few pixies collecting nectar from some moon flowers. The night was alive with the sounds of life: Owls hooting, crickets chirping, frogs belching, a _cait sidhe_ groaning, and something scrabbling through the underbrush. 

Then he heard it. A wheezing cry of pain. It sounded like a fox. Now, normally a fox screaming at night would be no cause for alarm. It was a commonplace occurrence. Despite that mental assurance, Sam’s fight or flight instincts were completely filling him with energy and wouldn’t turn off.

He debated for one more moment then was off. Sam had the mind to grab up his sword before leaping from the protection circle. It would stay in place until he said the deactivation or died so he wasn’t worried about Riot. Instead he concentrated on leaping through the brush, his Eye wide open to avoid falling to trap enchantments. 

Because his Eye was open, he saw the shining energy before he could work out the reality of it. It was a brilliant purple and white with gold eyes. It sat in the midst of a massive black void that Sam struggled to understand. Once his brain reconciled everything, Sam confirmed the animal was a fox, a red fox, caught with its left leg in a trap. What made him halt in his steps was the fact that the fox was sitting in a massive patch of dead forest that looked like a fire had burned it to ash.

Sam approached cautiously, wary of attack from both the magical forest denizens and the fox. The fox was whimpering and licking at its leg. It was hard to see because of the dark and the feeling of deep death. Then Sam walked close enough to see the blood seeping dark down its paw and into the ash. Sam circled around until he came into the animal’s eyesight. He set down his sword and approached slowly. 

The fox snapped at his hand when he first reached out so Sam backed off. His hand throbbed a little from the bite and Sam knew he was probably bleeding. He ignored the pain and started to talk in low tones to the frightened animal that had bit him.

“It’s ok, little one. It’s ok. I’m just going to help you get free.”

Something bigger than a fox or a _cait sidhe_ started creeping in the distance. Sam shuffled closer again, nervously eyeing the forest where the noise came.

“Come on, gorgeous. Let’s get you out of there.”

The fox seemed to sense that he meant no harm and finally allowed Sam to get close. Once he did, he could see the fox was in a pincer trap. The trap was buried so deep in dead ash that it was easy to see how the fox had missed it. When Sam touched the trap, he recognized it was iron and crafted to rip and pin an animal, not cut the leg off. Because it was a fox, however, the trap seemed to have done more damage than if it had been a bear or even a deer. The leg was broken clean through and shredded tears of flesh curled up against the iron. The longer the iron was pressed against its flesh, the more irreversible the damage would be. Sam winced at the state of the fox’s leg, surprised the animal hadn’t gnawed it off as animals were wont to do.

 _‘What kind of bastard would leave an iron trap in an enchanted forest?’_ he thought angrily while he carefully pried open the trap’s jaws.

Iron was notoriously deadly to all fae and most magical creatures, even witches to an extent. Leaving cold iron in an enchanted forest was probably one of the most damaging and insulting things someone could do. It was like pouring poison into a fish pond. Bringing in an iron sword or knife to help safeguard you was one thing. Bringing a trap implied something else altogether. If they were just hunting, there was easier game at the edges where the magic was insignificant and wasn’t turning the animals wily or sentient. Sam was currently so deep into the forest that he could sense the Wood’s magical center like a constant hum in the back of his mind. The only things anyone could _possibly_ have wanted to catch here were wild fae and animals on the verge of becoming fae themselves. To do this was to declare war against the Spiral Wood.

It didn’t take a court sage to guess who had done it. The only kingdom along this section of the Spiral Wood was Albion. And the only province with enough of a hatred for the enchanted creatures to do such a thing was Dencarrie Valley. He’d also bet his entire home that there were other iron traps scattered about the Wood. The advanced state of decay in the forest meant the trap was not recent. If Sam had to guess, it was _years_ old. Perhaps even older than the curses the Red Witch had laid on the Dencarrie Castellany. The thought made Sam almost want to give up the quest altogether.

Once its leg was free, the fox whimpered and backed away. It didn’t go far before collapsing in the moonlight and licking at its leg, making pained noises. Sam wasn’t sure what to do with the trap. He couldn’t leave it there for some other fae to fall prey to. Inspiration striking him, he undid his armor and removed his tunic. He put his armor on his bare skin then wrapped the sprung trap in the cloth. The fox was still injured and couldn’t walk so he sheathed his sword and scooped the fox up into his arm, making sure not to touch it with the iron trap on his other side. Then he made his way back to camp.

There were more pixies at the moon flower vines when he returned. A couple of them bumped into his protection circle and were gently repelled. Riot was dozing again and stayed that way even after Sam entered the circle with the fox in one arm.

Sam set down the fox and put the trap safely in his saddle still wrapped in his tunic. He took out a couple fresh ones, one to wear immediately and another to cut into bandages for the fox. It had grown incredibly docile during the walk back to camp, only jerking around a little in pain.

Sam cleaned and splinted the leg as best he could, considering his limited resources. He felt bad that he wasn’t any good at healing magic. It just never worked well for him. The best he could do was a spell to lessen pain, which he performed on the fox, augmenting it for an animal.

“There you go,” he said softly so as not to wake Riot. 

The fox watched quietly the entire time, eyes hauntingly bright in the dark. It was unusually still, in fact. He gave the fox a short rub along the head. It really was a gorgeous specimen, no doubt due to the magic that infused it. Sam studied it again with his Sight. It showed him what he already knew. The fox was suffused with astral energy. Not uncommon in an enchanted forest. The fox could be a fae spirit or it could be a regular fox imbued with the power of the forest. Even normal flora and fauna were affected by the magic in an enchanted forest eventually just by right of living there. Usually they just grew larger, more luxurious, more fertile. For just that reason Sam had hope that the fox would be alright.

The fox finally stopped staring and nosed at the splint Sam had made. Seemingly satisfied, it laid its triangle head on the unbroken leg and closed its eyes. Getting the hint, Sam patched up his own hand and laid back down to sleep. This time he dreamed of hazel eyes and red hair.

***

_One to kill..._

When Sam woke the next morning, the fox had gone, leaving the splint and bloody bandages behind. Riot was up and already grazing, and the coals of the fire had completely burned out. Sam got dressed, ate more jerky, saddled Riot, and dismissed the protection spell. 

Setting off once again to find the Kheir River, he found it difficult to focus on the search for Osgar after the strange events of the previous night. 

Having more time to think meant that Sam found himself deeply conflicted. If the traps really had been set up by Dencarrie agents on orders of the castellan or his wife, then the curse they suffered under was magical recompense for a grave wrong done to the fae realm. But fae justice was not human justice. Cursing the Lord and Lady of Dencarrie Castle plus all the agents who had a hand in the violation was understandable to Sam. Cursing the entire land so that even the Dencarrie people starved and died was not understandable for him. Most of the serfs and common folk had no idea what went on at the castle and even less ability to do anything about it if they did. 

Sam didn’t know what he could do. They were dealing with wild magic. If this feud continued, he feared there might be a Wild Hunt and then everyone would suffer. The last time there had been a Hunt had been--Sam searched his memory--in what was now known as the Blood Desert. It had happened during the Alligulan Empire after a king had broken a promise to the Unseelie King. It was believed that the land had been soaked so deeply in carnage and death that it had permanently stained the desert region red. Sam resolved in his mind to do as much as he could to prevent anything like that from ever happening in the Triple Kingdoms, even if he had to appeal to the Summer and Winter Courts himself. 

Eventually, Sam began to hear the rushing sounds of water then they came upon the riverbank. It was a truly beautiful place. Late morning light shined through the trees and hit the water turning the surface into running jewels. Thick, evergreen foliage lined the bank with birds and other animals making it their home. The water smelled fresh and clean, and in the distance Sam saw salmon jumping into the air from the hidden depths as they traveled upstream.

Sam took the opportunity to let Riot drink. After carefully checking to make sure it was safe, he led the horse to an area where the water was trapped in a ring of river stones. He also filled up his own flask and splashed the bracing water over his own face to wash away the morning’s grime and dirt.

He heard the snap of a twig to his far left. In the distance, partially obscured by a willow tree, Sam saw a woman approach the riverside. Everything in Sam’s body told him this was the woman in question, the dreaded Red Witch. 

Even though Sam had thought he was prepared for anything, when he saw her she still took his breath away. Truly, she was the most astonishing woman he’d ever seen. She wore a pink, long sleeve dress that flowed behind her in the cold wind. She carried a large basket of herbs and flower cuttings over her arm. Her red hair cascaded gently down her back and her thin sandals made no noise on the smooth rocks of the shoreline.

Witches were still people at their core and like non-magical folk, they were just as diverse in what they wanted and what they looked like. Based on her legends, she was meant to be the vilest and most depraved of creatures. This, of course, meant nothing when it came to looks. Sam had found in his life that even a goddess could do the work of a devil. 

Sam eased his way carefully around a boulder, sword drawn and liberally coated in witch-killing potion. His nettle and holly charm was applied to his chest and his Sight was wide open. All that was left was facing her in battle. When the woman set down her basket and began to undo the belt holding together the folds of her dress, Sam froze, realizing that she meant to bathe. He had two options at that point: confront her to do battle or leave to give her privacy to finish her ablutions.

Sam looked back at Riot, giving a rueful look then slowly sheathed his sword. He took the horse’s reins and turned to lead him away, trying to be careful not to make too much noise. 

“This is better,” he explained to Riot later, riding the gelding courser sedately down a safe forest path. “Now that we know where she is, we can locate her home and rescue the boy without running into her.”

Riot nickered and flicked his ears down. Sam chose to read that as agreement rather than skepticism.

Now sure that her den was nearby, Sam searched for signs of the witch’s presence. Most tended to gravitate to places of mystical power and convergences. Stone circles, ancient burial grounds, crossroads, and any number of liminal spaces were the standards. It was a little harder to detect for this particular witch since she lived in an enchanted forest; the entire Spiral Wood was itself a place of power. So Sam turned on his Sight and looked for nodes of unusually high concentration of magic.

Unlike full oracles who usually fully inhabited the Astral Realm, when Sam saw with his Sight, he could still see the normal world. Instead of projecting into it, the astral was layered on top of the physical like a skin of light that hovered just out of sync. Spots of heavy magical importance, people and creatures of magic, and spiritual entities glowed just a bit brighter than other things. The more power the person or place or thing, the brighter it glowed.

When Sam looked with his Eye, he found that the path leading away from where the witch had appeared was the brightest path in the area. She must’ve walked that road thousands of times while performing spells to leave that type of trace. Sam turned Riot and pointed him along the road away from where he knew she was bathing. He kicked Riot into a steady canter, careful not to go too fast lest the horse get spooked by a snake or accidentally step in a gnome’s hole. 

Before long, they came to an open field in the forest. In the middle, stood a moderately sized, freestanding tower made of tawny brick. It had long thin windows, two turrets, and a battlement at the top. The corbels that braced the turrets were carved to look like some kind of sea monster. Stone statuary filled the space in front of the tower’s door: warriors poised with hands or all manner of weapons lifted up to the sea monster as if to wage battle. Vines creeped along the tower’s base, reaching up like a crashing wave to where the sea monster perched.

On the opposite side of the tower from the path was a fenced off garden, a small stable and round pen, and a chicken coop. There was a palomino horse and two goats in the pen, five or six chickens were scurrying around the coop, and a couple of gnomes were nibbling on tomato leaves. After a moment, the gnomes were struck with a flash of yellow magic. They staggered, stunned but relatively unharmed, then went to diggin in the ground and pulling weeds instead.

Sam pulled Riot to a stop before the horse could step over the boundary between the dense foliage and the open grass of the tower’s immediate surrounding. The barrier between the clearing and the trees was lit up in brilliant reds in the astral realm. It was a ward, an immensely strong one. There was no telling what it would do should they cross it, if they even could. Perhaps it would merely repel them or signal the caster to return home. Or maybe they would just drop dead. 

It didn’t really matter what it did since Sam could not find a way to safely cross it or destroy it. He was a deft hand at a few spells but nothing close to complex enough to unbind a ward like the one he was looking at. He led Riot around the circumference a few times, searching for a weakness but found none.

Then Sam saw a doe grazing nearby carefully pick its way along a thick patch of grass inching toward the barrier. Sam watched it intently. The doe gingerly stepped up to the ward and then over it, still biting on grass in front of its hooves. There seemed to be no abrupt flash or violent death. It was as if the ward wasn’t even there. 

Testing out a theory, he threw a rock, then a twig over the barrier. He watched closely with his Eye to see if the magic activated but there was still no reaction. Then Sam tried poking the air above it with one of his iron daggers. Nothing.

“I’ve got an idea,” Sam said conspiratorially to Riot. The horse ignored him and started grazing at the grass himself.

Sam spotted a tree mouse above his head. Careful to keep it in his sight, he recited an _animalis mutatio_ spell to transfigure a pebble in his hand into a replica mouse. Being a construct of his mind, he controlled the thing into leaping out of his hand and scampering over the barrier. When the barrier remained unchanged, he felt confident in his plan.

Sam jumped down from the saddle and led Riot out of sight. He left the horse near a patch of safe and edible greenery, making sure to tie the reins around a branch thin enough that he didn’t wander off accidentally but could easily break if he needed to bolt from danger.

Sam went back to the clearing, checked that the forest path was clear then removed his sword and leather armor. He continued to strip until he was completely naked. Very carefully he tossed all but one knife over the barrier. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated.

Therianthropy was not an easy task. It involved immense psychic ability and a concrete sense of the self so that you wouldn’t get lost in the animal mind. It also usually required an uncommonly intense bond with a chosen animal or familiar to help bridge the gap between man and animal. Sam’s chosen animal was his hunting dog, Bones, currently safe back home in Laurentum.

Slowly, Sam felt his body shift and morph. Magic flowed through him and the world shrank smaller and smaller until he was the size of his golden retriever. Sam waggled his tail excitedly at his success. He then very carefully approached the warded barrier of the tower.

Sam sniffed curiously at it first then carefully stuck a paw over the mystical line. When he didn’t feel any pain or discomfort, he eased his full body over. The moment he got fully through, he involuntarily gave a bark in excitement. Another tree mouse skittered away and Sam had to fight the urge to chase it. After a moment of internal struggle, he resisted and got to the business of thinking human thoughts in order to facilitate returning to his true form. 

It was faster to shape-shift from animal to human, being more familiar with a human shape than a canine one. Where the first transformation took a few minutes, this one took only seconds. Sam shivered in the chill fall air after finishing the change so he hurried to put on his clothing. 

He had just pulled up his leather breeches when he heard a bright peal of laughter from behind him. 

“Such a shame to cover _that_ up.” 

***

_One to bind..._

Sam grabbed his sword from the ground and whirled in place. Behind him, leaning on one of the statues was the witch. She was smiling widely and her hair was still wet from the river. Her basket of herbs was gone, however.

Sam was completely flabbergasted. He had no idea what he should do. Should he try to attack her? Should he demand to see Osgar? Should he put a tunic on? Should he take his breeches back _off_ as she clearly had implied?

Before he could make a decision, she spoke again.

“You did much better than these others,” she purred and stroked a hand along the stone statue of a knight.

Sam narrowed his eyes. When he understood what he was seeing, he took an involuntary step back. Then, thinking twice about accidentally stepping over the ward, he jumped forward. 

The _Gorgoneion_ Curse. The ward was augmented with an apotropaic petrification curse that targeted humans or mortals. The statuary he’d thought were simply decoration re-contextualized into people trapped in stone for what could be eternity. He could easily have been one of them. If he hadn’t seen the doe, if he hadn’t known a shape-shifting technique...Sam shuddered.

“Oh, you poor man,” the witch said, turning back to her tower and waving a hand to magically open the front door. “Come inside before you catch your death.” 

She paused in the doorway and looked back over one shoulder coquettishly. “Unless, of course, you catch your death in here.”

Then she disappeared into the tower.

Sam stayed frozen for several minutes. Finally he lowered his sword and closed his eyes, confused at how he’d arrived at his current situation. A cold breeze hit his bare chest so he decided to just do as he was told and follow the wicked witch inside.

The tower was spacious and warm inside. The door closed behind him the moment he walked through and he tried not to feel trapped. That was no easy feat considering the high likelihood that it _was_ a trap.

The beautiful sorceress was nowhere to be seen when Sam’s eyes adjusted to the dimmer light. The tower was much bigger on the inside than he was expecting based on the outside. It was still circular in shape, it just seemed...more.

The ground floor was furnished with a few couches, thick rugs, and some wall hangings. There was a large fireplace sitting concave along one wall. Equidistant around the room were a handful of ornate sconces fueled by what looked like hyperactive fireflies. Faerie lights.

Sam stayed in front of the entryway and hurriedly put on his clothes. He decided to buckle his sword back in place at his side but made sure to keep it sheathed. It was more decorative comfort in any case. What was clear after just one encounter was that the Red Witch of Mount Bheur was more powerful than any of the witches he had ever dealt with. Since he was almost completely at her mercy, Sam elected to try for politeness and diplomacy. His pride was already in tatters so that was all he could cling to.

It was a promising starting point, all things considered. She had formally invited him into her home. _Hospitium_ was not just a formality or social nicety for magical folk. They were unwritten, binding contracts enforced by magic. As long as he did not break his side of the contract, he would be safe until he left her tower.

“Don’t just stand there all afternoon. Come on up, giant!”

The witch’s voice called down to him from the floor above. With her voice came the sounds of a kitchen and the smell of a hearty broth. His stomach growled so Sam followed both up the staircase that wrapped along the wall and disappeared into a dark hallway.

The next floor was the kitchen and had more spacious windows, which made it brighter than the ground floor. It was sweltering in the room, the massive fireplace-- _’Big enough to fit a man,’_ he thought--was blazed with fire while heating a cauldron the size of one used for a tavern. The pale woman was at a rectangular table, chopping vegetables.

“Riot,” he blurted, remembering at the sight of the carrots. “My horse.”

“Not to worry, giant. He’s already with Epona, warm and cozy.” She waved the knife in her hand at the window in a turret alcove where a number of herbs, fruit, and meats dried on racks.

Sam strode over, carefully avoiding the racks, and looked out to find Riot prancing around the palomino mare in the round pen. The horses bit at each other a bit to determine dominance before they both settled and started eating hay together. He could see that Riot’s tack was hung in the stable and his saddle packs were nowhere to be found. As he watched, snow began falling on the forest but the stable, round pen, coop, and garden remained untouched.

“Satisfied?”

Sam nodded, truly grateful, and turned back into the kitchen proper and the woman standing at the table.

She snorted but never looked up from her work. “You’re handy with a blade, yes? Those potatoes aren’t slicing themselves into rounds.”

Sam looked down and found another knife and a bowl of washed potatoes ready for him to use. He obediently moved to sit and found that his sword got in the way. After a moment’s hesitation, he removed it and leaned it out of the way beside the drying alcove behind him. Then he sat and got to work.

“Thank you for taking care of Riot,” he said quietly after a few minutes of silence.

“It was my pleasure,” she replied and scraped the vegetables she’d chopped into the boiling cauldron. “That gelding is a beautiful animal. I’ve always loved silver dapples. Emrysian, yes?”

He smiled. “Yes. My mother breeds them there. I’ve had Riot for nearly twelve years.”

Talking of home reminded Sam of his childhood before his father had conscripted him and his brother to the army as his squires. Their mother, who’d put down her battleaxe for good before they’d even been born, had chosen to breed horses instead. When he was little, Sam had preferred working with horses with his mother, learning her trade and hoping to take over their stable. That idyllic time had ended when he was eleven and the Philosopher’s War began between the Triple Kingdoms. From then on, his father made sure the only thing Sam learned was the feel of a sword in his hand and what it took to use it.

Sam’s first horse, a piebald rouncey named Muse, had not survived long in the twenty year war between the Triple Kingdoms. He’d been devastated by the loss, having helped raise him from when the horse had been a foal. After that, Sam had not dared to ride a horse from his mother’s stables. When the war had ended and Sam’s obligation to the Emrysian King had been fulfilled, his mother had called him home and presented him with Riot, a liver chestnut courser that Sam had immediately fallen for. 

Sam and the witch, whose name Sam realized he did not know, worked quietly together for several minutes until he had finished slicing all of the potatoes. She had moved on to the bream pulled from the larder. She placed four large bream on the table next to a glass blown platter. While he watched, she glided her hand in the air over the fresh fish. After two passes she snapped her fingers and jerked her hand up. Every scale on the fish jumped off the skin and hovered in the air. She then made a motion of spreading her hand over the platter and the scales followed after, lining up in neatly spaced rows. She flipped the fish over and repeated the spell on the other side.

Sam knew his eyes were like saucers on his face. He used spells here and there for protection and hunting monsters but he’d never learned a spell that did _that_. He wondered if the sorceress might teach him before he left. A spell like that would be immensely useful on the road when all he had to eat was the fish he caught on his line and he grew tired of scaling them by hand.

“Set that on a rack with the tomato seeds.” 

She gestured to the scales and Sam moved them to the alcove next to a similarly orderly glass plate of drying tomato seeds. While he did that she swung the boiling cauldron of vegetable stew away from the flame to cool. She then began roasting the fish, potatoes, goat butter, and spices in the bottom oven located next to the fireplace. Lastly, she put bread that had been rising to bake in the second oven and closed the iron doors. She did it all with magic, floating everything where it needed to be and avoiding going near the fireplace and ovens. 

She sat back on a chair and exhaled. “Now we wait. Hopefully, Osgar will come home by the time dinner is ready.”

She said it so casually Sam didn’t understand what she’d said for a full minute. When it finally registered, he fell heavily onto the kitchen stool. He felt awful for forgetting about the boy. His only excuse was that it had been a truly disorienting day.

“You have Osgar here?” he asked, perplexed.

“Of course,” she said, even more casually than before. “He was visiting a...friend for a fortnight. I scryed for him this morning, however. He should be home before nightfall.”

“ _Home,_ ” he echoed and pinched the bridge of his nose, a headache forming. “He’s living _here_ ? How-? _Why?_ ”

He was so out of sorts that he couldn’t even form a full sentence. Which didn’t matter anyway as a new voice interrupted and made Sam jump.

“Because I wanted to,” came the sudden reply to his frenzied questions.

Sam spun on his chair and almost lunged for his sword to defend against the strange man who had entered the kitchen behind him. The only thing that stopped his normal reflexes was that the man looked like the exact image of his father, Lord Cenric, and it had confused Sam for a split second.

Osgar Dencarrie was short and stocky. He got most of his looks, including a severe face, from his father. His honey blonde hair was directly from his mother, on the other hand. He stood in the door to the kitchen in a hard worn gray riding outfit with mud on the boots. Over his shoulder was a leather rucksack that he lowered carefully onto the table in front of the witch.

Sam breathed in deeply and fought the urge to scream. The two halves of his contract were standing right in front of him but he had no idea how to complete it. It didn’t even matter that after learning more about her, Sam didn’t want to kill the Red Witch anymore. It didn’t matter because the moment Sam had laid eyes on Osgar, he knew the contract could never be filled to the castellan’s satisfaction.

For Osgar Dencarrie was _at least_ ten years older than he had been only six months before.

“You’ve been in a Mound,” Sam gasped, studying the boy’s aged face. 

Faerie Mounds were homes to the Seelie and Unseelie High Fae or the Summer and Winter Courts, respectively. High Fae presided over dimensional planes tethered in liminal spaces both inside and outside the mortal and astral realms. An enchanted forest might spin you around and spit you out an entire county away from where you needed to go but a faerie mound might spit you out a full _millennia_ from when you and all you knew were alive. Time slipping in faerie mounds was notoriously disastrous. The more time a human spent there, the less they wanted to leave it and then the less they _could_.

“I have,” answered the boy... _man_. 

“He has,” the witch said, simultaneously.

Sam groaned, well and truly worn out. “What happened,” he asked, fearing the answers but needing them anyway.

“I ran away from the castle six months ago,” Osgar started. “When my parents sent their knights after me, I fled into the Spiral Wood. Before long, I found myself hopelessly lost when the most beautiful fae came to me and invited me into his mound. Before I could agree, Auntie found me and kept me from getting lost forever. She’s been helping me stay careful.”

Sam hummed skeptically, eyes pointedly rolling over Osgar’s aged face.

Osgar glanced quickly at the witch then down to the ground, frowning. “What happened next was my fault. One day it all got to be _too_ much,” he admitted, voice pained. “I just went in and lost myself for a while. Auntie came to get me but when I came out…”

“You’d aged,” Sam finished for him. The other man nodded.

The witch stepped in at that point and gave Osgar a hug. The man was only a few inches taller than her so it was easy for him to curl up into her arms.

“But you got control,” she reassured him, rubbing slow circles into his back. “You came to your senses and you’re safe in _this_ time, Osgar. That’s all that matters.”

Osgar stood after a while, and Sam could see that his eyes were a bit watery. Osgar sniffed, “After that, we struck a deal with Queen Gloriana. I would act as liaison for moving goods from realm to realm more regularly and the fae would no longer try to tempt me to stay. So long as I never voluntarily take a faerie drink or plate of food to consume for myself, I’m safe to travel back and forth with limited time slipping.”

“Speaking of which, Auntie,” Osgar continued. “I have what you requested. Rowanberries, handpicked by Queen Gloriana herself. She thanks you for the milk and honey, as always, and bids that you visit her again soon.”

The Red Witch smiled, fondly. She took a small pouch from the rucksack, opened the drawstring, and smelled the rowanberries hidden inside. Her eyes flashed purple. 

Of all the shocks he’d endured that day, Sam did not at all find it surprising that the mysterious witch not only knew the Summer Queen and smiled at the memory of her as if she were an old lover, but also exchanged food with her regularly.

“How was the Sun Ball, Osgar? I have missed it.”

Osgar smiled euphorically. “It was truly splendid. I had the most amazing time.” The man trailed off, voice dreamy and eyes glazed over. He was no doubt back in the Summer Court in his mind, nearly as real as when he’d been there. But only _nearly_.

That was how the Faerie Courts worked. They gave you a taste of paradise and then no memory was ever as sweet. The man had worked out a deal with the Queen, which few got to do, but eventually the years Osgar spent outside the Summer lands would feel like eternity; any food he ate which wasn’t fruit from a faerie garden would taste like ash in the mouth. For once you had true liberation, how then could you ever go back to shackles? After that, all it would take is for Osgar to eat one rowanberry or accept one sip of fae wine and he’d be trapped in the Summer Court for all eternity.

The red witch cleared her throat. “You can tell me more over dinner, little dove,” she lightly prodded.

Osgar shook himself out of his memory. “In addition to you returning soon, the Fair Queen also requested that you ‘bring your new giant.’” Osgar ran his eyes over Sam from head to toe and remarked, “I did not know what she meant at the time but I can see now.”

Sam was sweating profusely. Whether it was from the fireplace, the Summer Queen’s offer, or simply the entire day itself, he was not altogether sure. He pulled lightly on the thick jerkin he wore, abruptly aware he was in clothes far too thick for the kitchen and which hadn’t been washed in two days. 

“You look a fright, giant,” she exclaimed, finally noticing the state of him. She laughed, _so_ infectiously. It was unfair for her to laugh like that and steal the last of his senses.

“There’s a clean tunic in the spare room above. Osgar, could you show him, dear?”

She walked over to the drying alcove to view the state of the fish scales and seeds, clearly expecting him to retreat up the stairs after Osgar.

The boy-turned-man grabbed Sam’s arm and pulled him up the stairs to the next level where Sam saw four doors, presumably leading to living quarters. Each door was a different color and Osgar pointed Sam toward the green one then turned himself to the blue. 

Before the young man could disappear into the room, Sam lunged forward. “Wait! I just- I need to ask…”

Osgar paused in the half opened door. “Yes?”

Sam looked down at the smooth hardwood floor. “Why,” he asked, plainly. Repeating his question from earlier. He shook his head, trying to understand.

Osgar sighed and seemed to really contemplate his answer. “How well do you know my mother and father?”

 _‘Well enough to know that I don’t like them,’_ Sam thought uncharitably. “We first met only a sennight ago,” he said out loud.

Osgar nodded and looked deeply within Sam’s eyes, searching. Having found whatever he needed, Osgar nodded again.

“Did you know that Albion is the only Kingdom that does not allow unions with your same sex,” the man asked. Sam assumed it was rhetorical as he did not wait for Sam to respond. “Gehenna and the Emry Isles will allow it but Albion does not.”

As a matter of fact, Sam did know that. Even worse, parts of Albion had laws permitting violence or even death against those who loved differently. Having grown up in Laurentum, an Emrysian island, he had never had to think about the fact that he could love more than one gender. It had simply been a part of him. Sam had learned that it was _not_ the same in Albion the hard way when he’d been a fresh freesword, drunk and happy that the war was over. He’d thought the newly allied Triple Kingdoms would be his oyster and so he had propositioned another man in a bar. He told Osgar as much.

“Yes, well...let’s just say that I’ve been learning that lesson for my entire life.”

Sam frowned, mind reviewing the last few days. The other man pressed his lips together and then everything fell into place. 

“It was you,” Sam realized. “You put the hexes and ensorcelled coins all over your parents’ castle.” 

Osgar raised his head and pushed out his chest. “Yes,” he confirmed. “A few years ago they discovered that I was courting a fae boy and they started poisoning the forest. When I found out what they were doing, I was livid. I couldn’t face Ly Erg until I _did_ something. So I went back in disguise and cursed the castle. They made my life hell: mother, father, Sir James...They got what they deserved.”

Sam didn’t really disagree so he said nothing.

“Your Aunt,” he ventured, instead. Sam faltered briefly as his mind unraveled a puzzle. “If the hexes were your work and the malediction is the work of a three-fold denunciation by the Spiral Wood itself…”

Sam’s entire mission fell apart in an instant. 

“She’s innocent,” he breathed wonderingly. 

His eyes met Osgar’s, this time Sam searching _his_ gaze for answers. The younger man was smirking. He raised a single eyebrow at the huntsman then disappeared into his room, leaving Sam to unpack everything he’d learned.

The Red Witch of Mount Bheur had done nothing at all to the Dencarrie castellany. Even the stone warriors were justified. They’d all been there to kill her. All she’d done was defend her home and her friend from harm. Even then, Sam knew that she would be blamed regardless. The stories the villagers told each other, the enmity with which Lady Olivette spoke of the fae, the lack of responsibility Lord Cenric was taking for poisoning the Spiral Wood and starting this whole mess…all of it had gone too far. Both Dencarrie Valley and the Spiral Wood were a tinderbox waiting to be set aflame and the woman Sam was coming to admire would end up the target of the blast.

Sam somberly entered his own room. The room was warm from the kitchen beneath. He could see that night had fallen through the three windows spaced evenly on the curved wall. A large bed was positioned opposite the door and there was a fresh change of clothes laid out on it. A wooden tub filled with steaming water peaked from behind a partition. 

As he bathed, Sam contemplated his next steps. Obviously, he would have to dissolve his contract with Dencarrie Valley’s castellan. Not only had Lord Cenric and Lady Olivette entered into the contract with bad faith, but Sam’s honor would not permit him to complete either terms. Osgar was now effectively an adult in the eyes of Albion and could not be involuntarily remanded to his childhood home. Furthermore, the Red Witch was innocent of the crimes for which she was accused. She had only defended her home from trespassers. If the lord and lady contested, Sam would call them before the high court and King Uther. 

_‘Of course,’_ Sam thought, _‘they could decide to become the vilest parents alive.’_

The Lord and Lady Dencarrie could try to have Osgar charged with breach of lineage and successor obligations due to liking only men and never intending to have children. If it passed, Osgar would be forced to return or be remanded to a prison or indentured servitude. They were spiteful enough that Sam could see them trying.

Sam scraped a long brush across his back while he worked through ideas for Osgar’s case. The bath really was helping him concentrate. Sam marveled at the fact that the water stayed clean no matter how much grime washed off. He could feel the witch’s enchantments working on the water and he couldn’t help but admire the woman’s magical skill. Sam believed that he could spend a hundred years learning magic and still wouldn’t know as much as the seasoned witch.

Sam froze at the thought, getting an idea. 

Osgar had entered into a binding contract with Queen Gloriana, effectively making him a servant to a foreign throne who provided an essential skill to a foreign kingdom’s economic stability. Osgar could use that to claim asylum from legal obligations to Albion. 

After that, Sam would need to organize a party of humans, preferably Dencarrie citizens, to appease the Spiral Wood by cleaning and removing the iron traps that had been left. Hopefully, their sincere toil would be enough to lift the malediction.

It was only the bare bones of a plan and Sam would employ a barrister who specialized in tripartite or Triple Kingdom law to ensure its success. He’d worked with Rebekka several times before and he thought it might be a good idea to have her represent all three of them. He would tell the others after dinner. 

Regretfully, Sam hurried through the rest of the hot bath. He would’ve stayed to soak longer but he was starving and didn’t want to waste any more time getting to the meal.

When he exited the room, he found Osgar waiting for him in a blue tunic. Now clean and changed, the other man looked relaxed and happy. Sam supposed he probably was the same.

“Come,” Osgar said and turned back into the stairwell.

He led Sam up instead of down to the kitchen. They passed three more levels before emerging into where the tower’s battlement had been turned into a small observatory. Sam had only ever seen one once before when he’d studied tripartite law briefly at the Pandemon Academy just after the war. He had wanted to mediate disputes between the Triple Kingdoms. Gehenna’s capital city was also where he had learned the little magic he knew but he had left before getting to astrology. He’d had a terrible experience with a woman named Rubicon which had soured him to magic for years. It was only after speaking with his friend Castiel, who had innate magic himself, that he’d found a way to practice magic without feeling shame.

The observatory took up most of the tower’s battlement. A glass hallway led from the stairs out to the large dome housing the coveted skyglass. He knew several people who would kill to be able to use the one regulated by Pandemon. That the Red Witch had a private one hidden on top of her tower was unfathomable.

Their patron, resplendent in a golden gown, had set up dinner on a long table to the side of the skyglass. Despite it being night, the area was well lit with faerie lights and it was easy to see the heavy snow beginning to fall on the enchanted forest. It was utterly breathtaking. Sam had never seen anything like it. 

They ate slowly, talked all night, and watched the snow fall outside. Sam told them everything he had thought of while in the bath. Osgar had been excited but his long journey between dimensional realms had tired him so he’d retired, leaving Sam and the Red Witch to drink wine in silence.

They stayed that way for a while and then the witch had turned to Sam.

“Thank you,” she’d said, sincerely. “For Osgar.”

The absurdity of the past sennight hit him all at once. Osgar, seeing the Red Witch by the river, getting caught naked, coming to kill her but being invited in to dinner as a guest…

 _‘Who prepared dinner for a man who was hired to hunt you?’_ That she’d done all of this for him even though he’d been sent to kill her was his breaking point. 

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, pleading for an answer that he could understand. He slammed his goblet down on the table, spilling a little wine as he did.

She turned in her chair and set her own goblet down. Faerie lights were glowing behind her red hair. “What would you have me do, huntsman? Turn you into a rodent, into stone? _Kill_ you?”

“Yes,” he cried, gesticulating. He jumped from his seat and strode over to the skyglass angled up to the heavens. His back was to her, finding it hard to look at her face for some reason.

“I only kill my enemies,” she playfully responded, and he heard her standing too.

Sam whirled to look at the witch. “I _am_ your enemy!”

She smiled and her eyes crinkled with wrinkles that she most assuredly chose to keep. She paced toward him slowly until she was forced to tilt her head back to still look at his face. He was immediately made aware of exactly how tiny she was. She barely came up to the middle of his chest. It was no wonder she called him “giant” so often. He had not noticed before as the presence she exuded made her seem larger than he could fathom.

“How can you be my enemy,” she countered, speaking slowly and clearly, “when you’re so _very_ useful?”

She lifted her left arm and pulled back the sleeve of her dress. From beneath the gold silk, she revealed pale skin still healing from an angry, iron-burned scar. It was a scar that could’ve only been obtained one way.

The break from the iron trap seemed to have healed even if the ragged slashes had not. _‘Perhaps the bone had healed during her transformation?’_ he absently wondered and gently took her arm in his hands. He cradled her delicately, acutely aware of the contrast between her silken skin and his calloused hunter hands. 

He couldn’t look at her, staring intently at her arm and drowning under the knowledge that the fox he had saved and sheltered in his circle of power had been _her_.

“I don’t know your name,” he sighed in defeat. Unexpectedly, tears welled up in his eyes.

The Red Witch of Mount Bheur grabbed his chin with her free hand to guide his eyes back to hers. Dazed, Sam saw that her eyes were watery too.

“Rowena,” she whispered. “My name is Rowena.”

He curled down and pressed his forehead to hers, tears finally falling from his eyes. They mingled with Rowena’s tears, the combined weight making tracks down her cheeks. She began stroking her hand through his still damp hair.

“Hello, Rowena,” he said, completely losing control. “I’m Sam. Samuel Winchester.”

Rowena smiled. “Well met, Samuel,” she said. 

Then she pulled Sam’s face down to hers and kissed him. 

***

It was said that the Red Witch of Mount Bheur had three faces: one to save, one to kill, and one to bind...

The legend had existed for as long as he could remember. But Sam Winchester, High Merlin to King Arthur of Albion, knew the _truth_ about his wife: the Red Witch Rowena had only ever had a face to love.

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of 3s in this one. Also, I made all the main characters in this queer. *shrug* Just go with it.


End file.
